Boredom is Relative
by J. Dragonsoul
Summary: Sequel to "Another Boring Day...NOT" Bouke and Co. are now in the DBZ universe but their wish created an inter-dimensional space-time distortion, which causes characters from other anime to pop up at random. How will they fix the mess this time?
1. down is a long way to fall

**Disclaimer: I dun own DBZ though God knows I'd like to. Veggie-chan… XD ((drools)) I also don't own Douglas Adams' whale or any other anime/show/book/whatever which might get mentioned (or pop into existence) in this story. The only things I own are Bo, Zar, and Mike and any other thing that comes trouncing out of my creative little mind and onto the pages presented here for your viewing entertainment. That's all this is though. Entertainment. Both for me and for you. So you be entertained now, ya hear? And dun go suing me or nothing…**

_Author Notes:_ This will be (hopefully) the only author's note in the whole fic, so bear with me 'cause it's long. To make up for that, the chapter is really long too. XD  
First off, about that, I'm not doing any ranting 'n stuff in author notes in this fic. I've decided to keep this fic as clean as possible, just pure unadulterated fanfiction. For author notes and rants and other stuff, check out my livejournal (the link is on my profile, under 'homepage'). You can also talk to me there and suggest stuff to happen in the story and characters to appear from other anime and stuff, etc. So do that. I like talking to you people.  
Also, no mailing lists for this fic. Just stick me on your author alert thingie or check my livejournal for updates.  
Thirdly, this is a _sequel_. If you've not read the first, then you're going to be very confused. _Very_. I'll try to minimize that confusion somewhat by explaining stuff on the way, but you'd still be better off having read my first fic, _Another Boring Day… NOT!  
_Now, I've grown up since _ABDN!_ (after all it has been over a year and a half) so things'll be a wee bit more mature in this fic. Not so much as to destroy the humor and stuff, but there will be not as much swearing as I've realized I was a tad bit more prolific with it in the first than I should've been. And seeing as how my character's supposed to be eighteen-years-old… she herself could be somewhat improved upon.  
Also, I've done away with the Japanese words that I subbed in in the first. I think that was stupid of me and it made reading the fic difficult. Characters will still use acceptable words that many fanfic readers know already, such as 'onna', 'baka', 'Kami', and the honorifics attached to names and stuff.  
Oh, and… **Happy New Year!** XD I felt like this would be a good New Years present to you all, so here it is!  
Okay, now that that's all done: I hope you enjoy this fic as much as you said you enjoyed the first. Now, without any further ado…

* * *

**…**

**Boredom is Relative**

**…**

**Chapter One**

**…**

**:: 'down' is a long way to fall ::**

I opened my eyes and I was falling through an endless sky of blue. It was a little disorienting, you might say. Fluffy white clouds were shooting by me and below me lay a vast expanse of ground, slowly but steadily drawing closer and promising a painful landing. I glanced to my left and saw two other bodies falling nearby. My eyes stung from the wind that was howling past me though and so I couldn't make out who they were but that was okay. I already knew. Squeezing shut my eyes, I thanked God I wasn't alone.

Wait. Freeze frame.

I know who they are but do you?

For that matter, do you know who _I_ am?

If you don't, let me explain:

My name's Bouke, Bo for short. I'm falling through the sky right now above Earth, as you might have guessed. What you might not have guessed though, is that this is not your Earth. This is the Earth of the Dragonball Z universe. I'm here with my brother and my friend. To make the long story of how we got here short: somehow, some people from the Dragonball Z universe came to our world, and when we found the dragonballs to send them back, my brother, my friend and I used our remaining wishes to follow them back.

Okay, now that that's done, back to the falling.

The ground rushed up at me as the speed of my descent increased at a scary and insane rate and I was suddenly reminded for a moment of the falling sperm whale in one of Douglas Adams' books. _I wonder if it will be friends with me?_ The last thought of the whale echoed through my head as I braced myself for impact.

**…**

The pain finally subsided somewhat as the ocean of black quietly faded to a bright blue with a flaming white light in the center of it. I realized my eyes were wide open and I was squinting up at a sun framed by puffy white clouds. I quickly shut my eyes against the brightness as it was only amplifying the long drumbeat that crashed through my skull. "God, I have a splitting headache," I moaned, sitting up and wrapping my arms around my head. The rest of my body felt like a giant had kneaded me like I was bread dough and I wasn't surprised, seeing as I had fallen from such an altitude.

"I feel like someone split my head open, broke my body into a million pieces and then super glued it all back together." I opened my eyes a crack, enough to see that Mike was curled up into a fetal besides me, his own arms hugging his head in a futile attempt to quell his own pain.

"I feel great!" Out of the corner of my eye, I espied my little brother Zaretu, Zar for short, bouncing around through the small forest clearing happily.

"That bastard son of my parents," I muttered to myself. "Why does he get all the luck?"

"It's probably 'cause he's younger and so his body can adjust to physical changes easier," Mike replied weakly, sitting up and peering around the clearing.

"Fuck that. I don't call falling hundreds of feet out of the air 'physical changes'. That bastard's doing it to spite me. Zar! When I get better, I'm gonna beat the shit out of you!" I growled as loud as I could without further hurting my aching head. Then a thought occurred to me. "Mike? Why the hell aren't we dead?"

"Probably our new Saiyan bodies were better able to handle the impact better than normal human bodies," Mike groaned out as he put his glasses onto his face where they hung crooked from his nose. "God knows we've seen Goku and Vegeta handle similar cases hundreds of times before."

Oh, yeah. I didn't mention it to you earlier, but along with wishing to get sent to the Dragonball Z universe, we wished to become Saiyans. If you don't know what they are though, you have no, I repeat, _no_ business being here.

I heard Zar humming happily as he scampered around the clearing we had landed in and the noise he was making made my head throb uncomfortably. "Bro, can it," I growled.

"Make me," he cackled, his eyes twinkling mischievously.

"Oh, be sure; I will."

"That's if you can catch me first!" A huge grin was splayed across his face and I felt like getting up and strangling him.

"I'm faster than I look, brat."

"It's all in your mind." He blew a raspberry.

"The mind can be a very powerful weapon," I snarled. All the while we had been arguing, the pain throughout my body had been ebbing, little by little, and as Zar approached me to prove his point, my eyes snapped open and my hand flew out, reaching for the nearest part of his body to grasp so I could hold him still. The part closest to me as he turned to flee happened to be his newly grown tail. He yowled in pain as I held it fast when he burst away, causing the tender appendage to be stretched.

"My tail!" he howled, tears streaming from his eyes. He turned to attack me when he stood, frozen, for a moment as the fact dawned on him. "My tail!" He dove for the furry object and hugged it close. "I have a tail! Yay!"

I noticed another brown furred appendage waving in the corner of my vision and I turned my head to observe my own tail. "I have one too!" I called out, completely amazed by this turn of events.

Mike looked at his own tail with no surprise apparent in his expression. "Well, we _did_ wish to be Saiyans and Saiyans do have tails, if you would care to remember." He stood up and brushed off his pants.

"I gotta try to use my ki!" I jumped to my feet and took up a familiar position. "Big Bang Attack!" I yelled, copying Vegeta's movements that I had studied on the television screen for many hours one boring Saturday.

To my disappointment though, nothing happened. "What the fuck?" I said angrily.

"Well, first of all, your stance was horrible," Mike said, pushing his glasses up on his nose and then looking at them cross-eyed in irritation at their crookedness. His eyes refocused on me though and he continued, saying, "Secondly, although we wished to be Saiyans, we did not mention anything about raising our ki."

"What?" I stared at him, completely shocked. "You're not joking, are you?"

"Nope."

"So I have the same level of ki as when I was human?"

"That would be a logical assumption."

"That's so stupid!" I growled, punching a nearby tree. I shrieked slightly in the pain that ensued and then nursed my now wounded hand. With a sigh, I announced, "It's true…"

"You doubted me?" Mike looked hurt.

"Yeah, sorry." Then I took on the hurt tone. "If you knew, Mike, why didn't you tell me when I was making the wish?"

"I didn't think of it then." He looked to the ground. "Sorry."

I sighed. "This sucks. This really sucks."

Oblivious to our slight dilemma, Zar announced "I'm hungry!" from where he had collapsed on the forest floor to pet his new tail. Eight-year-olds are only amused by so little but when they are amused, they are _really_ amused.

"Food does sound like a good idea," Mike admitted.

"Feed yourselves," I said sullenly. "Go hunt down a deer or something."

"Actually, I was kind of thinking of some bananas…"

"Bananas sound awesome!" Zar bounced up. "Where are they?"

"No where around here," I answered, attempting to crush his hopes.

"But I want some bananas."

"Well, you aren't gonna get any."

"I wonder where some bananas would be…" Mike pondered out loud.

"C'mon, Mike. Why do you two want bananas?" I asked, "There's nothing special about them. I'd rather have Chinese food or maybe a huge plate of nachos… or both." Now that they had mentioned food, I found that I was _really_ hungry. I bet that I could have eaten a whole elephant at the moment and I wasn't even repulsed at the thought of eating an elephant. Actually, it sounded really good…

Mike explained his reasoning. "We're probably connecting the monkey-like tail to the common thought that monkeys like bananas. Our subconscious mind is then telling us we need bananas now that we more closely resemble unevolved primates."

"If we're going to end up eating bananas, I'd like mine on ice cream with chocolate sauce, whipped cream and a few cherries," I said dryly.

"We should set out in search of sustenance."

"Sustenance?" Zar asked, staring at Mike with an expression that said I'm-so-going-to-leave-you-behind-while-you're-sleeping.

"Sustenance is a really fancy word for food," I said.

"Then, yeah. Let's go," Zar agreed. We stood in the clearing for a few minutes in silence as Zar tore apart dead leaves that had fallen to the ground while he waited for us to get going. Finally, he asked, "Are we going?"

"Yeah, I guess," I answered and asked Mike, "What direction?"

He shrugged. "How am I supposed to know?"

"You seem to have a lot of the answers today, like most days. I assumed you might have the answer to that one too."

Mike wrinkled his nose to shift his glasses' position on his nose while saying, "Assumptions are one of the major flaws of the human race."

"Ah! But no longer human, am I."

"Yoda, anyone?"

I grinned and flashed a 'Victory' sign. "Yoda's cool!"

"I don't know, Bo… He's short, green and a little bit freakish…"

"Yoda is your god!" I said, pointing a finger at Mike. "Admit it."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Food?" Zar asked hopefully.

"We really should eat," Mike agreed as his stomach rumbled loudly.

"Don't you dare try to change the topic of conversation!" But his back was turn as he and Zar exited the forest clearing. Defiantly, I called out, "I'm not moving from this spot until you come back here and apologize!"

There was no reply from the surrounding foliage.

"Um, hello?"

And still no reply.

"Mike?" I saw a large pair of red eyes staring at me from a group of heavily leafed tree branches. I lifted a clenched fist (my uninjured one) up and shook it angrily at the tree. "Don't you be trying to scare me, you good-for-nothing male!"

In response, a large reptilian head, a little bigger than my own, popped out of the green leaves and flicked its tongue out at me, eyeing me hungrily.

That was it. Letting loose a scream of dismay, I took off running after my friend and my brother.

Due to my fear, I caught up with the two males quickly and Mike turned to give me a patronizing look. "Awh, did big, brave Bo get scared?"

Before I opened my mouth to ask, Zar answered. "We could hear you."

"You were screaming like a banshee in heat." Mike smirked.

"Another word and I will cut both your tongues out," I fumed.

Zar rolled his eyes and skipped ahead, ignoring me. Mike snorted. "Not likely."

"Whatever," I said in an exasperated tone, giving up. "Where are we going?"

"I dunno." Mike shrugged. "I figured we should just walk in a direction. It's better than just standing around doing nothing. We might even find some fo-"

As if God himself had heard Mike speaking (which in the Dragonball Z universe was entirely possible) my little brother exclaimed, "Hey! Look! Berries!" He dashed towards a shallow stream, leapt over it and landed in the middle of a large group of bushes. I watched him go and thought to myself and God, _There better be thorns in there_._ Plenty of them._

"Zar, wait! They might be poisonous!" Mike cried out, running after the boy, getting himself entirely soaked in the process as he splashed through the stream.

_That could work too_, I thought, heaving a sigh of frustration as I took off my shoes and socks so I could follow the guys. I shook my head and muttered, "Males…" as I made my way carefully across the stream, only managing to get my toes wet on the way. On the other side, I sat down on a large, flat rock and dried off my feet on my pant legs, then put on my socks and shoes.

I turned to look at Mike and Zar only to find them pigging out on a hoard of blackberries. Mike noticed my disgusted stare and extended a stained hand to me, a few berries nestled in his palm. "Want some?"

"I'll give you a clue: I hate anything that ends with the word 'berry'," I replied simply.

He blinked and then shrugged, tossing the plump morsels into his mouth. "Well, you don't know what you're missing out on then." He grinned at me with juice-stained teeth.

"I don't know, and I don't care." I stretched out on the rock, soaking up the sun that managed to break through the leafy cover of the forest to illuminate the stream and the area surrounding it. I soon became drowsy and lethargic from the warmth and the steady burbling of the stream and eventually I dosed off, quietly slipping into the welcoming embrace of sleep.

I awoke some time later to the feeling of a clammy _thing_ on my face. I opened one eye timidly and found myself staring into the unblinking gaze of a small frog, sitting on my cheek. I was about to howl in outrage when I heard my younger brother snickering somewhere off to the right of me. The frog blocked my view of him but I would have bet all of my money that the boy was hiding in the bushes, waiting. I realized that what I felt like doing, lose my temper and flip out, was exactly what he wanted me to do. So I decided to do the opposite.

I picked the frog off my face, sat up and set the little creature down on my knee, petting its damp, cool skin with my forefinger. Mike looked over at me and grinned slightly. "Figuring out the game finally?" he asked.

"I've known it. I just liked to play along," I lied as I watched my brother sullenly slink out from the bushes, giving me an evil glare. Mike gave me a knowing look as he mouthed the word "bullshit." I grinned back and put a finger over my lips.

He shook his head as he stood and stretched. "I take it we'll be off now?"

I looked up at the sky. "Yeah, we probably have a few more hours of daylight left."

"Are we going to a hotel?" Zar asked.

"Of course not, baka." I laughed.

Mike was a little bit more sensitive in his reply. "We're in the wilderness. There are no hotels. Also, we don't have any money; at least, none that the people of this universe will think has any value. We'll probably end up sleeping in some clearing somewhere and, when we reach a city, on a park bench or in a homeless shelter."

"What? A homeless shelter?" Zar's eyes widened to an enormous size and he stared at Mike and me in amazement. "You must be _shitting_ me!"

"We shit you not," I answered as I slide off the rock and set the frog back down its warm surface. Then I reached over and smacked Zar upside the head. "Don't swear," I said.

At my feet, the frog stared up at me for a moment, blinked and announced, "kero kero," then hopped off the rock and into the bushes.

"Hey! That frog just ribbited Japanese style!" I said, my mouth hanging open as I stared at the bushes incredulously.

But my livid brother was not to be deterred. "I am not sleeping on the ground, on a park bench or in a smelly, old homeless shelter! And you can't make me!" His face was suffused with blood and spittle flecked his chin.

"There's no other choice," Mike pointed out calmly.

"Zar, if you say one more about 'I won't do this,' 'I won't do that,' I'm gonna track down the dragonballs of this world and wish you back to our own. Do I make myself clear?" I said in a low, firm voice.

Suddenly, his eyes gleamed as if he had been struck by an idea, but the moment passed and he bowed his head in acceptance. "Yeah." I glared at the little guy with suspicion. It was not like him to give up without a fight, sometimes even a war. I had a feeling that this was not the end of the argument but there were other things to think about.

"Well, if we're all _agreed_ now," I glared at him, daring him to state otherwise. Unfortunately, he did not, "we should try to find a shelter for the night. Preferably a cave or something."

"Bo, you do realize that this is real life?" Mike asked me, giving me an indefinable look.

"Of course I do. What do you think I am? Stupid?"

"No, it's just, well, in real life there's usually no convenient cave situated right by the main characters when they need one, as opposed to fiction."

"But there's always a cave!" I told him. "Fiction tells the truth! Just you watch! When we find a cave, I'm gonna say 'I told you so!'"

"You do realize that saying fiction is truth is an oxymoron, right?" Mike asked as he gave me a look that said oh-God-you're-stupid.

"Be quiet. You just don't want to admit that I'm right and you're wrong."

Mike rolled his eyes at my immaturity. "You're almost as bad as your brother."

Ignoring him, I started walking in the first direction my feet took me and they followed behind me as I started our blundering search through the woods for a suitable nighttime shelter.


	2. close encounters

Okay, I know I said that that one author's note in the first chapter would be the only one in the whole fic but who am I kidding? I gotta say this:  
Holy shit.  
Wow.  
I love you guys to fucking death.  
I already got 11 reviews for this fic, which is damn close to my average for _ABDN!,_ 16.2. You all rock my world. I totally thought I was gonna get only 5 or something but already double-digit! Insane! You people are fucking great! XD  
So, I'd like to thank alla ya bastards for your support and worship. ;p Lol. Not to be egotistical or anything, of course. It's good to see some old pennames (wanted to say 'faces' there but that wouldn't be true) and I'm so freaking glad that you guys didn't forget about me. I promise you that this fic will not be abandoned and I will work extra-hard on it to make it both as enjoyable and humorous, if not more so, than the first.  
((end speech))  
_Notes about potential inaccuracy in this chapter:_ I can't remember where Capsule Corp. is located, so I just assumed it's in the middle of a big city and also I couldn't quite remember if Vegeta's gravity room is outside or inside of his and Bulma's home place. So, I just wrote what worked for me.  
And that's it for now. Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter Two**

**…**

**:: close encounters ::**

The sky above was getting dark and I could even make out a few, faint stars when we finally located a cave. I gave Mike a triumphant look and said quite shamelessly, "I told you so." He merely shook his head, mumbling something under his breath that I couldn't catch. I walked arrogantly into the cave, Zar and Mike following behind me in a manner that I preferred to think of as 'meek'. I chuckled to myself silently. It always felt good to disprove something that Mike had stated. Something that was actually right.

"I'm hungry again," my brother said and I could feel the ground underneath rumble with his body's demand for sustenance.

"Shit, I'll say you are," I replied, eyeing him warily.

"What?" He gave me an innocent look. "That wasn't me."

"Sure," I drawled out the word sarcastically, indicating my disbelief.

"It wasn't me! Honest!" He turned to Mike. "Wasn't that you?"

Mike shook his head. "Nope."

"Well, if it wasn't you and it wasn't Mike and it wasn't me than who else could it be?" I asked, trying to point out the flaws in his logic.

"Um, maybe that?" Zar said, pointing over my shoulder into the cave.

"Maybe what?" I turned around and came face-to-face with a mouth full of big dripping teeth. I suppressed the scream that threatened to escape my lips and let it go full-blast mentally instead. The mouth belonged to one of those big dinosaur things that were sometimes in the show for humor purposes although, now that I was standing right in front of one of them, I could see nothing humorous about it whatsoever… except for the fact that it vaguely resembled Barney. The creature was purple and a good fifteen feet taller than me but what really destroyed the friendly purple dinosaur image was the mouth full of razor-sharp teeth that could bite off my head in one go.

"Uh, hi there," I squeaked, taking a little step back in shock. The dinosaur followed with a large step of its own and I found it uncomfortably close. The kind of close that invades your bubble-space and makes you just want to cry. I opted for a more calm approach however and asked in the most pleasant tone possible, "Is this your cave? Well, we'll go if you want. I'm sure you don't like sharing stuff. I know I don't. We'll leave right now, in fact, right guys?" I waved my hands behind my back in a shooing motion to get them to start backing up.

"Yeah, we're going," Mike said, trying to keep his tone even and as not threatening as possible as he walked backwards slowly.

"Bo, he's so cool!" Zar exclaimed in a hushed tone. "Can I keep him?"

I risked turning my head to give him a burning look. "Just go."

"So I can't?"

"Mike," I said his name with a tone that was half whine, half threat. With a small grin in spite of our precarious situation, he grabbed my brother's arm and pulled him towards the cave's entrance. I looked back at the big dinosaur and found its muzzle right up against my chest where it started sniffing my shirt with gusto. "Oh god," I groaned as mucus from its nostrils dripped onto my clothes, "I think I'm gonna throw up."

"Bo, you better get out of there too," Mike's voice floated to me from a location presumably out of the cave.

"I don't think it's gonna let me. I think it likes me."

"Try anyway."

With a small prayer, I took a step backwards, keeping my eyes on the purple reptile in front of me. It watched me with dark yellow eyes, its slitted pupils lit with a menacing light from the little light that was available in the dark cave. Encouraged by its lack of movement, I stepped backwards again and then again and again. That was when it took a step forward also and I found that I had lost all of the space I had gained with my four tiny steps.

"Mike!" This time my voice was strained and a complete whine. "Help!"

"Just turn around slowly and then run for it!" Mike answered.

"I don't think that's a good idea." The dinosaur seemed to be grinning at me in glee at my situation. If I had made that wish to raise my ki, I would have decked the beast right there. I wondered what it would taste like roasted over a fire and found my mouth salivating. My stomach rumbled in irritation and at this, the dinosaur let loose a great roar that made my knees shake. I had no doubt at that point that it was hungry and going to eat me so I quickly spun around and sprinted towards the cave entrance, promising God that if I made it through this alive, I would never make fun of Mike again… well, hardly ever…

The light outside was nearly gone and when I saw that my brother and Mike were no where in sight, I called out frantically, "Where the hell are you!?" Behind me, I could hear the faint, light steps (surprising for its size) of the dinosaur as it followed me out of the cave, its pace nonchalant as it seemed certain there was no where I could run to that it couldn't get me.

"Up here!" I looked up a nearby tree and saw Mike sitting on one of the branches. He held out his hand. "Jump!" I ran straight for the tree and with a mighty bound, found myself flying up in the air, my hand outstretched and reaching for his.

I missed.

After I had got myself to my feet after a painful landing on my ass, I threw myself at the tree with a scream of anger and fear and dug my nails into the bark as I climbed the tree in a wild panic. Just when I felt my hands begin to protest the abuse that they were receiving and my shoes begin to slide away from lack of purchase, Mike's hands grabbed onto the back of my shirt and hauled me up onto the branch where he was crouching. I breathed a sigh of relief and rubbed my throat from where my collar hag dug painfully in. My sigh quickly turned, however, into a choking gasp of fear when I heard an ominous _crack_ that originated from the branch we were situated on. Our eyes met and without a word, he stood up and pulled himself up onto a nearby, slightly higher branch.

"Oh, yeah. Save yourself and leave me to die," I muttered as my new tail wrapped itself firmly around the branch I was sitting on as though it could somehow stop the branch from breaking.

"It's not going to break, Bo," he said in an exasperated tone but I noticed his own tail reflexively curling around his branch. "It merely could not hold both of us."

"Excuses, excuses…" I stared down at the angry dinosaur that was currently tromping around the tree as it tried to figure out how to get us down. Then I glanced around. "Mike? Where's Zar?"

Mike began picking at the bark on the branch, avoiding my gaze. "Um… I don't know."

"What?" I stared at him. "You don't know where my brother is?"

"We kind of separated. He gave me a lift up into this tree and then just disappeared." He shrugged.

I clutched at my hair in frustration, muttering, "If he gets eaten, I'll never forgive you."

"Me?" Mike was surprised. "What? Am I his babysitter now?" After a moment's pause, he added, "And doesn't that line usually go 'I'll never forgive _myself_'?"

"Why would I be the one at fault?" I cocked my head to the side and gave him a strange look. "You lost him."

He rolled his eyes. "Never mind…"

I cupped my hands to the sides of my mouth and called out, "Zar! Where are you?"

"Up here," his voice replied from above me and I looked up and saw him perched on a large branch about twenty feet up from where I was sitting.

My brow wrinkled in confusion and Mike asked, "How'd you get all the way up there?"

The little guy grinned, his eyes gleaming. "That's for me to know and you to find out."

I snorted. "Well, fine. I'll be damned if I help you down, though."

"That's okay. I don't need your help anyway," he said in a cheerful tone and began to swing down the tree from branch to branch. The image reminded me of a cross between Tarzan and a monkey, a comparison only heightened by the tail that he had trailing behind him. Soon he was sitting on a branch right next to my own and, with a grin, he asked, "So I guess this is where we'll be sleeping for the night?"

"If you can actually get any sleep, yes," I grumbled, wishing that he had fallen on his way down.

"Like I said earlier, Bo," Mike said, the eyes behind his glasses full of amusement.

"I don't want to hear it!" I yelled, covering my ears with my hands as I hunkered down on the branch for a long night that was spent half-awake and pricked with splinters; the only noises my brother's contented snores whistling softly through the night air and the whispering of the trees as I tried to figure out a way to kill him that would look like it was an accident to Mike's critical eye.

**…**

The sweat streamed down the well muscled back of the Saiyan as he worked out in the gravity room, the silence only broken by the rustle of his pants and the occasional noise born of exertion. His muscles bulged as they lifted his body up and down, beads of sweat forming and rolling off his body to fall to the floor of the room hard as they were dragged down by the immense artificial gravity. He had found himself spending a lot of his time in the gravity room since his and his companions' return. At least, more time than was usual for him. Although he would admit it to no one, he had somewhat enjoyed his time with the humans on the other Earth and had felt slightly bereft since he had been wished back to his own world.

He vaguely heard his woman pounding on the door of the gravity room, yelling at him to come out and eat, but he had no appetite and so he ignored her. He turned over, sitting on the floor and laying back. Concentrating on his breathing, he felt the intense gravity fight the expansion of his lungs as he drew each breath. He lay like that for a moment, allowing himself to breathe as he let his mind drift.

Sometime later, when he felt a familiar ki approaching his location, he sat up slowly and commanded the gravity chamber to shut down, returning the gravity in gradual increments to Earth norm. He felt his whole body relax as the weight sloughed away and he experienced a momentary light-headedness from the experience. It was the opposite kind of feeling from the kind you get when you lay down in a tub full of water and let the water drain from the tub slowly, bringing your body from a weightless state back into the realms of gravity. He grabbed a towel off of the floor near the door and briskly wiped the sweat off of his body before pulling on a shirt.

Opening the gravity chamber's door, Vegeta stepped outside. The stars in the night sky above glittered faintly and he stared at them for a moment before saying in a gruff tone, "What do you want, Kakarot?"

Goku grinned in his typical fashion. "Awh, c'mon Vegeta. Does a friend need a reason to come visit?"

"First of all Kakarot, you are not my friend and therefore, yes, you do need a reason."

"I was feeling like sparring and wanted to see if you were interested," Goku answered.

Vegeta snorted. Goku was lying, he could tell. He could always tell when the other Saiyan lied, although, admittedly, he didn't do it much. "What's your real motivation, Kakarot? You're wasting my valuable time."

Goku sighed, giving in. "Okay, okay. Bulma asked me to come check up on you, see if you were okay. She said you had been acting weird since we got back and she's worried."

"I'm fine, Kakarot." Vegeta brushed past him, intent on taking a shower and then going to sleep.

"Good!" Goku grinned again. "You wanna spar?"

Vegeta paused and thought over the offer for a moment. He shrugged and turned around. "If you think you can take me," he said, a small smirk on his face as he powered up to Super Saiyan

Goku grinned even larger, if that was possible. "Now there's the Vegeta I know!" He powered up also and then launched himself at the shorter man with a flurry of punches and kicks, all of which Vegeta deflected easily. The Saiyan no Ouji responded by releasing a few large ki blasts at Goku, who scrambled to both shield himself from the blasts and make sure none of them escaped to fall on the surrounding city. He gave Vegeta a reproachful look. "You shouldn't do that, Vegeta. Your aim might be off and you might end up killing some innocent people."

"My aim? Off? Never, Kakarot." Vegeta renewed his assault on the other Saiyan but listened to him and kept his attacks to physical blows.

They sparred like this for a time, neither Saiyan gaining the upper hand until one of Goku's punches slid past Vegeta's defenses and landed itself square on his jaw, an event neither of them were expecting. In shock, Vegeta froze, amazed that Goku had actually managed to land a punch on him, something that rarely happened when they sparred as both of them knew each other's rhythm and had silently agreed to spar to keep their reflexes sharp, but not to actually land blows. So entrenched was Goku in the rhythm he had fallen into that it took him a few moments to recognize that Vegeta was no longer blocking his attacks and in that short period of time, the younger Saiyan managed to land an additional three blows on the Saiyan no Ouji, knocking the shorter Saiyan out of the sky.

"Vegeta!" Goku called out, flying down to kneel beside the other Saiyan. "Are you okay?"

Vegeta blinked a few times and it took him a moment to notice that he was lying down in a large crater, staring up at the night sky with a dazed expression. He sat up and fingered his jaw where Goku had hit him. He didn't seem to have heard Goku's question.

"Vegeta? Are you okay?" Goku repeated, offering a hand to help the shorter man out of the crater.

Vegeta ignored the proffered hand and pulled himself out the hole in the grass. Knocking the dirt from his clothes, he replied, "I'm fine, Kakarot."

"Are you sure?" Goku was concerned. He had never really ever landed a blow on the littler Saiyan before and he took this occurrence as a bad sign.

"What part of 'fine' don't you understand, Kakarot?" Vegeta growled before turning and stalking off. Goku cocked his head to the side, trying to figure out what exactly Vegeta had asked before realizing that it was a rhetorical question. With a sad expression, he stared after the older Saiyan and wondered what was wrong.


	3. the best laid plans

_A/N:_ Just wanted to mention to CatDemon1 that I thought about her question and tried to address it in here. I had wanted to mention that whole thing earlier but I forgot. So, yup.

**

* * *

**

**Chapter Three**

…

**: the best laid plans :  
**

Somehow during the night I had managed to actually achieve a state resembling that of sleep and in the morning I awoke to the bright sun shining into my eyes as my brand spanking new sensitive Saiyan nose sniffed the air where a tantalizing smell was lingering, playing over my senses like a bow upon a violin. I blinked, clearing my eyes of those crusty little things that conjugate during the night, as I tried to figure out what I smelt. My mouth salivated as it recognized the aroma of roasting meat and I looked around for the source. Below me, Mike and Zar were seated underneath the tree, roasting what appeared to be a large haunch of flesh. I tentatively climbed down the tree to join them, remarking, "Damn, that smells good! What is it?"

"Dinosaur," Mike answered, pointing to his right where the large body of the now-dead purple dinosaur from the night before lay.

"How'd it die?" I asked, walking over and poking it with my toe to make sure it was dead. I doubt if it had been alive it would have let the boys peel a piece of its flesh off without a fight but it was always good to make sure.

"Dunno," Mike shrugged.

"Any ideas?"

"No."

I sighed. I should have known better than to question Mike in the early morning. He never really woke up for a couple hours and spent his the time in between sleeping and waking in a near mono-syllabic haze, unwilling to speak much, if at all. I turned to my brother. "How'd you get the fire?"

"Mike's a boy scout, remember?" he replied, giving me a look that said, _He's your friend. You should know these kinds of things._

"Oh, yeah."

Without a word, Mike took the meat off the fire and offered it to me. I thought for a moment how to attack the food and settled for tearing off a large piece of it. The meat was kind of hot, but not enough to really burn my skin. I was kind of surprised at that considering it had just been roasting in the fire but brushed it off as some weird side-effect of the whole alternate universe, turning-into-Saiyan thing.

That reminded me of something I had to ask Mike. I glanced at him but he still had the half-glazed look in his eyes as he mechanically ate the roasted dinosaur and so I settled with saying, "Mike, hurry up and wake up. I have a question for you and the answer will involve the use of your brain."

He grunted in reply and continued eating. I blew on my meat for a few moments before digging in. It was surprisingly good, although somewhat lacking in flavor. Ketchup would have gone well with it. Dinosaur and ketchup, mmmm…

"Zar, did you guys find any type of other food?" I asked as I finished the meat. Mike was already putting another hunk on to roast.

Zar shook his head. "No. I looked for fruit trees or berry bushes or something but I couldn't find anything."

"Damn…" All the information I had absorbed from my Health class and, strangely enough, my Chemistry class was flashing before my eyes and I suddenly had visions of us going without fruits and vegetables for a week and dying from vitamin deficiencies or some such health issue.

"I don't mind," Zar said.

"You need healthy food, brat," I told him, "or else you're gonna get some serious health problems."

"But we're Saiyans now," he pointed out. "Aren't they almost totally carnivorous? Can't we live on only meat now?"

I thought on that for a moment. I looked at Mike but he was still pretty dead to the world. So I thought on it some more. Finally, I answered my brother with the best educated guess I could muster:

"Maybe?"

"Awesome!" He grinned and jumped to his feet.

"You going somewhere?" I asked, looking up at him.

"Gotta pee!" And in a blur, he was gone.

I sat for a moment, wondering how he ran so fast but finally gave up on the thought. I turned back to stare at Mike, who was looking decidedly more awake. He stared back at me and we sat like that for a while before he said, "You had a question?"

"Oh… hang on…" I thought for a moment, backtracking everything that had ran through my head that morning before I found it. "Why aren't we cartoon-ized?"

"What?" He stared at me with a blank expression.

I waved my hands around, trying to get him to see it. "You know. How come everything's three-dimensional and all normal? I thought it'd be like DBZ. You know. Like anime. Big eyes! Sweatdrops! Crazy weirdness! Yes?"

"Oh… I guess it's got something to do with the same reason when Goku and Vegeta and all them were in all world and they looked normal, at least how we perceive normal. It would have to go something like we only saw them as animated on the TV show because that's how they were drawn but in this world they are really living and breathing and such so they look real." He paused for a moment. "Either that or it has something to do with how our brains interpret what we're seeing. For all we know, we could be appearing anime-like to them and when they watched themselves on the TV, they looked 'real' to themselves."

I tried to figure it out. "So which one is it?"

"I have no fucking clue," he answered, taking off his glasses and rubbing his face with one hand.

"I think we all need to go back to sleep," I said, yawning and leaning back against the tree.

"I'm still hungry," he protested, turning the meat over the fire.

"So eat!"

Zar suddenly popped out of nowhere, or not exactly nowhere seeing as he kind of ran up to us, bearing an armful of fruit. "Food!" he exclaimed, dumping it on the ground.

I stared at one that he handed to me. I was kind of suspicious because he had just complained about not wanting to eat fruit and they were vaguely reminiscent of peaches and I hated peaches. But I was actually still very hungry and hungry people will eat just about anything. Deciding to put a little faith in my brother and be a little more adventurous than usual, I took a bite out of the fruit and found that it actually wasn't half bad. "Where the hell did you get it?" I asked as I took another bite.

"I took a whiz on this tree and while I was looking at it, I saw it had fruit it in," he answered with a grin.

I bit into it again and chewed it, then thought about what he had just said. After swallowing, albeit tentatively, I asked, "So… you took a piss and then touched this fruit?"

"Yup!"

"Oh, god. Gross!"

…

"Remind me why we're walking again?" Mike asked, his feet dragging listlessly as he and Zar followed me through the woods.

"We're trying to find someone or some building or something," I answered.

"Just randomly in the middle of the forest?"

"Why?" Zar piped up.

I turned and looked at him. "Got any better ideas?"

"Not really," Mike said and Zar shook his head.

"So, why not walk?"

"Okay." Mike shrugged.

"I don't want to walk though!" Zar protested.

"Shut up. Exercise is good for you," I said before turning and continuing walking.

"What makes you think we're going to find someone, anyway?" Mike asked.

"We will." I knew the confidence in my voice would make his eyebrow lift with surprise even though I wasn't looking at him.

"Like we're just going to randomly run across someone? The odds of that is bad. Very bad." He paused for a moment to think before saying, "We've got like a one in a hundred thousand, five hundred and twelve chance of actually running into another person out here!"

"Is that your educated guess?" I quipped.

"It's a rough estimate," he answered with another shrug.

"But that's how it would be for home," I pointed out. "We're in the DBZ universe now. We're guaranteed to run into someone."

"How do you know?"

"Coincidences are the bread and butter of television. In TV shows, things like Murphy's Law apply: if anything can go wrong, it will. Just like a random coincidence will happen that will reunite us with Vegeta and Kakarot and the others. That would be a bad thing for them, so it's going to happen."

"But how do you know? For all you know, we could walk for another week and not even find a sign of civilization! We could even be on the opposite side of the planet from where they live!"

"But we aren't."

"Goddammit, Bo! How-"

"That," I said, pointing at a house that we had come up to. It was set in a forest clearing and looked very familiar.

"Is that…" his voice trailed off and I nodded.

"Kakarot's house."

After a talk about what course of action to take, we finally settled on just ringing the doorbell and taking it from there. Hopefully, Goku had neglected to tell her what we looked like exactly and so she wouldn't recognize us. Mike reminded us we should curl our tails under our clothes or else Chi-Chi would notice them and go whacko on us and it took us a good five minutes to wrestle our uncooperative newborn appendages into submission. Finally, we were ready and after scrubbing a little bit of dirt on our faces and clothing for appearance's sake, we rang the doorbell to the house.

It took a few moments for her to answer the door but soon enough, she was standing there in all her scary raging harpy glory. "Yes?" she looked at us with a face that betrayed the suspicions she held.

I quickly put on my best _pity-me-please_ face I could muster and, as I told him to, my brother sniffled pathetically, sounding as though he was on the verge of tears. "Excuse me, ma'am, I'm so sorry to bother you but we were hiking the other day and we got lost. We've been looking for help for the last few days and I was wondering-"

"Oh, come in!" Just as I had suspected, Chi-Chi's maternal instinct kicked in and she swooped down on my brother, almost picking him up and carrying him inside her home in her rush to take care of him. Mike and I trailed after her, I shooting him a little grin as he gave me a look that said "You disgust me."

"I bet you all are starving!" Chi-Chi exclaimed, sitting us down at a table as she zipped over to her stove where food was cooking. She quickly served up bowls of soup and we all dug in without protest. She hovered over us while we ate, refilling our bowls when we finished and asking questions and clucking over Zar who was soaking up the attention like a sponge. I answered her as best I could, telling her we were from Satan City and had been on a hike with my family when my brother wandered off and so Mike and I chased after him and somehow we all got lost and had been that way ever since.

"Well, I want you all to clean up and then I'll get you some fresh clothes while I wash yours," she said and, against my better judgment, I found myself actually starting to _like_ the woman. She was being awfully nice to us and I could be a sucker for nice people.

"Do you live alone out here, Ms….?" Mike asked.

"Oh, excuse me! I never introduced myself!" She laughed. "I'm Son Chi-Chi and I live here with my husband and our two children."

"Where are they now?"

"Goku, my husband, and Goten, my youngest child, are over at a friend's house and Gohan is right upstairs. Let me go get him…"

She left the room and I took the opportunity to turn and hiss at Mike, "What now?"

"I don't know. Don't you have a plan?" he whispered back.

"No, I don't think ahead! That's your job!"

"Well, use your head for once and think of something!" he growled and then sat up straight as Chi-Chi walked back into the room with Gohan.

"Hubba-hubba!" I whispered as I saw the grown-up demi-Saiyan. I thought he had been attractive on the show but damn, he looked fine!

"Gohan, meet Bekah, Mitch, and Zed," Chi-Chi said. We had told her false names because Goku had most likely at least told her that about his stay in our universe.

"Hey. My mom tells me you got lost. I'll give you a ride into Satan City if you need one," Gohan offered, smiling pleasantly. _That's not the only ride I'd like from you_, my mind cackled and I had a hard time keeping the grin off my face.

"That sounds great," Mike said. "Thank you."

"No problem," Gohan answered, putting his hand behind his head and grinning that Son Grin. Being in the room with a smile like that was like staring at the sun for five minutes straight. I had to look back at my empty soup bowl after a moment for fear that I would go blind from the sheer wattage.

"Well, let's get you all cleaned up so Gohan can take you home," Chi-Chi said cheerfully as she busied herself cleaning up. "Gohan, can you show little Zed where the bathtub?" Her son nodded and started leading my brother off but as they left the room, Chi-Chi called out after them, "Oh, and Gohan?"

"Yes, mother?"

"I need to come with you to drop something off at Bulma's too while you're in the city."

"All right, we'll do that first thing."

At this, I shot a slightly panicked look at Mike. Bulma was at Capsule Corps and at Capsule Corps was Vegeta and I doubted that the Saiyan Prince would be very happy to see us. Suddenly, the thought of seeing him, Goku and everyone else again didn't seem like such a good idea after all…


	4. lies exposed

**Chapter Four**

…

**.: lies exposed :.**

We piled into the family's car and took off, Gohan driving with Chi-Chi in the passenger seat and Mike, Zar and I sandwiched in the back. The car ride was long; I had forgotten how far away from Satan City the Son family lived. Or maybe the car ride was lengthened by Chi-Chi's incessant attempts at conversation. She regaled us with tales from Gohan's childhood, told us about Goten and even went so far as to tell us how she met Goku, although that story was one we all knew quite well.

At one point, Zar even piped up and said, "And after you fought in the Budoukai, you got engaged, right?" Chi-Chi looked at him from where she sat in the passenger seat with a bemused smile on her face and asked how he knew. For once, my brother actually said the right thing when he replied, "Lucky guess," although he shot an evil grin my way when Chi-Chi looked away.

I replied to this with a quick jab of my fingers between his ribcage and his hipbone, digging into his sensitive stomach area painfully. He glared at me and attempted to return the favor but Mike grabbed his hands and held them tight. "Behave, Zed," he growled, letting go of my brother's hands with a squeeze. Then he looked at me and said, "Don't encourage him."

"God, Mi-" I caught myself before I said "Mike," instead saying his pseudonym, "Mitch. Why don't you live a little?"

He returned my roll of my eyes with one of his own. "I don't really think fighting with your little brother is up there on my 'Top Ten Things to Do in My Lifetime' list. So, if that's what you considering living, no, thank you."

We stopped talking at that moment because that's when Satan City came into view. "Wow," I was plastered to the window in an instant. The city was impressive in that way things can only be when you see them for the first time ever. It was no longer just a pretty picture on a TV screen: it was a real, living, breathing organism (you know, in that big city kinda way) and there it was, spread out before me in all its glory, a tangible piece of reality.

Zar of course started whining that he wanted to see and Mike, being the natural peacemaker he is, switched seats with the little guy, an impressive maneuver in that tiny car. "Look there's Gohan's high school," Chi-Chi pointed to Orange Star High School as we passed by it. "He met his fiancée there."

"Fiancée?" I raised an eyebrow at this. "Aren't you a little young for that kind of a commitment?"

I directed this question to Gohan, of course, and he answered with a sigh before saying, "I'm not engaged: my mother just likes to think I am."

"Oh, Gohan's just in denial. They'll be married soon," Chi-Chi said confidently, reaching over to tousle her son's hair. I didn't have to look at Gohan's face to see that he was embarrassed by his mother's blatant display of affection. I knew this would be his reaction from watching the series numerous times and, thus, learning his teenage character like the back of my hand.

"What's the lucky girl's name?" I asked, deciding to play into Chi-Chi's delusions, though I knew that unless our arrival screwed up the timeline, those delusions would become reality soon enough.

"Videl."

"Mom!" Gohan whined, slumping in the driver's seat. Then he perked up as an opportunity came for a change of subject. "Oh, look! We're here!"

I looked back out the window and froze. We were there; at Capsule Corporation. I turned to look at Mike and he returned my wide-eyed expression with a shrug that seemed to say, "What happens, happens."

"C'mon out, guys. Stretch your legs for a bit," Gohan said, unbuckling himself and getting out of the car as his mother entered the nearest building with a small package in hand.

I was about to lie and say that I felt fine but Zar had already gotten out and was bouncing around outside with all the of exuberance nine-year-olds contained. Mike looked at me and grinned. "Damage's already done," was all he said as he followed Zar out onto the grass. I sat in the car and growled a few quiet, colorful curses before I also exited the vehicle.

"So, where do you guys need to get taken?" Gohan asked from where he leaned against the car.

"Uh…" I looked at Mike for help as I had given that particular question no thought yet. I found my hand unconsciously straying to my stomach to scratch nervously at my tail. It was still wrapped around my waist under the shirt and I quickly moved my hand away, stuffing it in my pocket. _Don't want to be showing that off just yet_, I reminded myself.

"Just drop us off at a nearby mall," Mike told Gohan. "There's a few things I have to pick up. I'll just give my parents a call and then catch a bus the rest of the way home."

"And you?" Gohan looked at me inquisitively.

"My parents should still be out hiking or looking for us out there. So I'll just stay at his place until they get back," I answered, then added, "I don't have a key for our apartment."

"Okay… I feel kinda weird about just dropping you off though," Gohan said. "Are you sure I can't take you just straight there?"

"Yeah," I assured him with a smile, "Thanks though."

"Well, I offered," he said, smiling back.

"So what's your mom doing?" Mike asked Gohan as I idly watched Zar, who was currently doing handstands and cartwheels across the grass lawn. I wondered if Goten or Trunks had taught him how to do those; he didn't used to know how.

Gohan shrugged. "Giving something to Bulma, I don't know what it is."

"Bulma Briefs? The inventor?" Mike feigned astonishment.

The demi-Saiyan grinned, putting his hand behind his head, "Yeah, actually. She's an old family friend."

"Wow, you know some important people."

"Well, stuff tends to happen around my family so we end up knowing a lot of important people."

I couldn't help but pipe up and say, "That must make life exciting."

Gohan looked at me and grinned again. "You have no idea."

"What's that?" Zar asked, pointing at a small building that was nearly hidden behind two larger ones and just barely visible from where we stood. I recognized it after a moment as the gravity chamber that Vegeta used for training.

Gohan thought for a second. "It's a test room. It's used to see how durable new products are. They're subjected to strenuous gravities to see how much pressure they'll withstand before collapsing. It's a very useful tool for developing objects that will be used in airplanes and spacecraft, you know, things that will be put under high gravity on a day-to-day basis."

"If it creates a high gravitational field, then what was that guy doing inside of it?" Zar asked, pointing at a figure emerging from the building. The flame hairstyle was unmistakable, even at a distance and I ducked behind the car, unwilling to get killed just yet.

"Uh… he's a tech guy. He was probably fixing it," Gohan lied.

From where I was crouched behind the car for safety, I could see Vegeta running a towel over his bare chest and I wished I was a little bit closer so I could get a better view. But then again, I do value my life quite highly so I was glad I was far enough away that I would at least have time to run before he killed me.

When he started walking towards us, I quietly panicked, trying to think of a way to get out of there before he recognized us or our ki signatures. "Uh, I've gotta go to the bathroom!" I announced, which got me a strange look from Mike. "Let's go in for a second!"

I jerked my head at Vegeta's approaching figure and when he saw the imminent danger our lives were in, he quickly agreed. "Yeah! Bathroom break, Zed!" He grabbed a hold of Zar's hand and we all quickly hauled ass into the nearest building, leaving a more than a little confused Gohan behind.

**…**

Vegeta stepped out of the gravity chamber, his breathing slightly strained from the workout he had just undergone. He grabbed his towel off of a hook and ran it over his body to clean off the droplets of sweat that clung to his heated flesh as he glanced over to where a car was parked a little distance away. He had sensed a nearing high level ki and so had cut his workout a little short, curious to find out why Gohan had come to see Bulma.

"Kakarot's brat!" he called out—the insult was the closest he would ever come to greeting the demi-Saiyan familiarly—as he walked over to meet Gohan where he stood at his car. Vegeta noticed a trio of human rushing into a nearby building but ignored the inferior beings: they weren't worth his attention.

"Hello Vegeta," Gohan said politely. "How are you?"

"Fine," Vegeta's irritation at seeing Gohan there crept into his voice and he asked sharply, "What are you doing here?"

"Mom had to see Bulma about something."

"I see." He crossed his arms, the towel draped over one shoulder, and then the Saiyan Prince gave Gohan a once-over, eyeing the boy critically. "Have you been keeping up on your training?"

"Not that much lately," Gohan admitted. "School's gotten in the way of that. I try to spar with Dad as often as I can but stuff gets in the way…" After a short pause, he added, "Do you know where he is, by the way?"

"He took Goten and Trunks to an amusement park," Vegeta answered, his tone clearly stating that he himself found no amusement from this.

The short Saiyan slowly became aware of something that tickled the back of his mind timidly and so he stood there, a few feet away from Gohan, and tried to pin down exactly what it was. It was a familiar feeling that ghosted over his mind, a ki presence that he could have sworn he had encountered before and was of consequence, but who (or what) it was escaped him. He turned to look at the nearby building, where it was emanating from and concentrated. Not one, not two, but three ki that he knew. The three humans he had seen enter moments before? But who were they? And where did he know them from?

**…**

We had run into Bulma and Chi-Chi on our way inside and they quickly ushered us back out the door and I didn't have time to get a word in edgewise as Chi-Chi introduced us to Bulma. Outside, Vegeta was standing next to Gohan, his back to us, but when he heard the door open and the sound of voices, he turned to look at us. I saw disbelief register in his eyes as he stared at us for a moment. Then, rage slowly flowed over his face and he snarled, "What are _you_ doing here?"

"Hey Vegeta. Did you miss me?" was all that I could manage to squeak out before he came barreling at me. A fist to my face sent me flying into the wall of the nearest building and I heard a resounding _crack_ from the impact and I could have sworn I felt two or three bones break when my body became imbedded in the concrete.

"Vegeta!" Bulma's voice shrieked and through the blackness that clouded my vision, I could see Gohan jumping on him, attempting to restrain the enraged Saiyan, while Mike ran over to check on me.

"You okay, Bo?" He pulled me out of the dent my body had created in the wall. "Anything broken?"

"I think so," I groaned, trying to stand up straight and failing miserably as my back protested the abuse.

"Do have any senzu beans?" Mike turned to ask Bulma and Chi-Chi.

"Yes. I keep some in reserve in cases the boys hurt themselves when they train." Chi-Chi pulled a small container out of her pocket and popped the lid, shaking out a senzu bean into her hand. She gave it to Mike who put it in my mouth. I swallowed the small hard object and after a moment, straightened up, realizing that I felt fine.

"Whoa, awesome," I said, stretching out my back until my spine popped. I smiled at Chi-Chi. "Thanks."

Bulma was talking to Vegeta. "Vegeta, calm down!" The Saiyan Prince, realizing that he was going to get out of Gohan's effective embrace no other way, stopped struggling and merely settled for glaring at me and my companions in silence. "How do you know these people?" Bulma asked her husband.

"They are the humans from the other universe," Vegeta growled.

"That's impossible," Chi-Chi assured him. "They're just kids who got lost hiking. Gohan was giving them a ride into the city so they could go home, right Mitch?" Chi-chi looked at Mike with a smile, waiting for him to confirm his story.

He wilted under her gaze, never one to be able to stand up to authoritative figures and blatantly lie when faced with the truth. Mike swallowed nervously and took his glasses off, playing with them for a moment before mumbling, "Actually… he's right, Chi-Chi… I'm actually Mike, that's Bouke, and that's Zar and we are from the other universe."

She stared at him, that silly smile still on her face, and for a moment I thought she was going to take it well. I was wrong, of course. That was only the calm before the storm.

"WHAT?" she screeched and, dear god! There it was! Out of nowhere! The Frying Pan of Doom! And she introduced it right into Mike's face, sending him flying into the wall to make an identical imprint of his body right next to mine.

Before I rush to my friend's aid, I glared at Zar, who was laughing hysterically. He grinned at me, giggling out, "At least he took off his glasses!"


End file.
